Create Your WordPress Design Locally on Your Mac

I have read several articles about how you could set WordPress up to run locally on your Mac but it always sounded really complicated so I had avoided it and just set up an online test site. I wanted to start creating myself a new website in WordPress so I gritted my teeth ready for problems, but it worked really easily. I know Macs have built in Apache (required for WordPress) but I had read that the application MAMP made setting things up much easier as in one go it installs Apache, PHP and MySQL, everything you need to run WordPress.

I downloaded MAMP and it installed easily (into my Applications folder), then downloaded WordPress and installed inside the MAMP folder in a folder called htdocs (its already there ready) within that I create the folder called WordPress which WordPress was installed into.

Start MAMP (click the application and then start servers) then click phpMyAdmin and create a new database I called mine “wordpressrd” but you can call yours whatever you want (you can then close this window). Then from within your WordPress folder open wp-config-sample.php and you need to input some info. All the info should be the same as below apart from you need to change your database name to whatever you called it.

You can then start to add themes/plugins etc into the themes folder just as you normally would if WordPress was online. It means you can tweak your design to your hearts content without anyone else being able to see it.

I’ve used XAMPP before and it works great (supposedly there are some security issues, but I think that’s only if you’re on a network, like in an office). Sometimes it’s a little confusing to do the DB connections–I always forget to change them to my web host’s connection information (DB name, user, password) when I upload my files. Being able to do things locally really makes testing loads easier because you’re not always having to upload to the web server to see small changes.

So it sounds like you’re really getting into web design, Tara! Do you feel like you’ve learned a lot in the past few months?

I used Xamp on my PC, but it wasn’t as easy to set up as MAMP on the Mac. I am definitely learning a lot about web design, but am still not confident yet. I am trying to make myself a new website, I have created a look in illustrator and am not trying to make wordpress do what I want it to (starting with K2). I haven’t yet tried building a static site from scratch. I still get in a mess with CSS positioning.

I’ve never used MAMP (because I don’t have a Mac) but I use xampp all the time on my pc… There’s also a portable version (from portableapps.com) so you can have xampp on a memory stick… which means you can have your wordpress installation in your pocket!

Verne, they do make a different program for PC. It’s called XAMPP. I’ve used it before and it sounds like it works just the same as MAMP (XAMPP has a Mac version, too), though Tara says the MAMP is easier to set up.

I used XAMPP exclusively until about two months ago (when I bought my first Mac). Went to the site to download the Mac version since that’s what I was comfortable with, and discovered it to be a lot more complicated. I don’t why it would be so much different between the two platforms, but I don’t think I even got past the lengthy instructions. I opted for MAMP instead. I was up and running with it in a matter of minutes.

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Hi, this is Tara, I am a freelance graphic designer based in Northamptonshire UK. I have nearly 20 years design experience and I write this graphic design blog. Please take a look at my portfolio or contact me for more information